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Re: [ARSCLIST] Vanguard Classics reappears in 2 cd sets



Hi Roger:

The former Everest/Bellock studio and its contents was bought by Fine Recording when Harry Bellock's board stopped funding the money-losing recording business. Fine Recording was the owner of the film equipment and mics. Mercury was a (frequent/special) client of Fine Recording and the film recording was first used for Mercury. Enoch Light decided to get Command into the classical recording business after attending a concert in Stamford or Danbury CT (forgot which one -- it's described in a NY Times article), talking with Steinberg and finding out Pittsburgh was without a contract. Since my father engineered all the Command pop and jazz recordings, Enoch sat down with him and they discussed doing classical recordings. My father wouldn't go for a copy-cat of Mercury (and I'm sure Enoch didn't ask him to), but he had other ways to skin the cat, so he and Enoch came up with a way that was more similar to what Everest had been trying (to varying success). So the Commands have a unique sound. I'm glad you enjoyed digging out and playing your LPs.

The original-issue Command Classics, at least until ABC bought the company but maybe also into the ABC era, were definitely deluxe-packaged and probably premium-priced. I wish the liner notes had been more expansive but they did hire Marty Bookspan, who did a good job. The inner sleeve was a laminated cardboard, about the thickness of what an LP outer sleeve was in Europe in those days. The jacket was gate-fold and made of heavy cardboard with a coating of textured printed stock. More like a wedding album than an LP record. Somewhat similar to the quality Enoch used on his Paul Whiteman anniversary reunion album on Grand Award. I'm pretty sure Command Classics were never a big money maker but they were definitely a labor of love. And yes, ABC and then MCA dragged them down to Pickwick and that ilk, just like they did with all of that label. As I understand it, MCA bought ABC only for Ray Charles and didn't care about most of the rest of it.

-- Tom Fine

----- Original Message ----- From: "Roger and Allison Kulp" <thorenstd124@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, June 07, 2006 12:51 PM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Vanguard Classics reappears in 2 cd sets



Tom,Very helpful information,indeed.I was looking last night,and I have seven of these Lp.I gave the "Pictures",the Wagner,and the Debussy/Ravel,a spin,and they are sweet!I bought mine,in two lots,at thrift stores,in the early 90s,and have not seen copies this nice since.Your information is very helpful,in explaning,why these sound different,even from the Capitol Pittsburghs,of the period.I had read that Mercury had taken the 35mm recorders,that Everest had used,but I was not aware Command got the mics,and mixers.There have been so many Westminter reissues over the years, you would have thought there would have been a couple of these in the mix,too,since they were both controlled by MCA/Universal,at one time.
So were the Commands,originally sold as "premium" price records ? This would explain thier relative scarcity.I remember ABC,later relegating Command,to thier "low rent district",before licensing,some of it off to Pickwick,just before THEY went under.
Roger Kulp


Tom Fine <tflists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
 Hi Rod:

My father made most of those recordings and his company did all of them. Most of the ones not
engineered by my father were engineered by Bob Eberenz, although some of the last sessions were done
by Ted Gossman. There were a few unique things about the Pittsburgh recordings, which resulted in a
unique sound. Not everyone likes them, but people who do seem to like them very much.


What was unique:

1. the Pittsburgh hall had the stage in the middle of the hall, so the whole space was in effect a
reverberant chamber.

2. six mics were used, in order to get an in-focus pickup of the orchestra but also get a good heavy
dose of room sound. The mics were Church mics, which are either rare or very rare depending on what
history you believe. Church were Neumann U-47 capsules in a different body and with a different
power supply designed by MGM sound engineer Stanley Church. Some say Church was still selling mics
in the mid-60's, but I'd like to know how he got the capsules loose from Herr Timmer, who tightly
controlled Neumann goods in the US from the mid-50's onward. These particular Church mics, and the
custom Westrex mixer to which they were connected, were originally at Everest.


3. of course, not too many people recorded directly to mag-film, and all the advantages of low noise
and high dynamic range are there.


4. Command spared no expense with these records, so the LPs were pressed on great vinyl and were in
super-rigid sleeves. This changed when ABC bought Command, and by the end of the recordings, 1967,
ABC was selling the earlier albums for a couple of bux in the cutout rack.


If you have the original-issue Command quarter-track tapes, they were duped at Fine Recording's
duplication operation. Those tapes should sound good but I have a bunch of them and mostly they
suffer from edge warp so they're not pleasant to listen to due to left-channel dropout unless the
old gauze-in-the-head-can method is used to play them. I'm not a big fan of quarter-track duped
tapes, but some people seem to have better condition tapes than I usually see. I dig the original
LPs, but mine are getting pretty played out. Which is why it would be great if this stuff got
reissued. I wonder if any patrons of the Pittsburgh Symphony would have any interest??? Or the
Pittsburgh PBS stations?? A nice box set of Steinberg's Beethoven and Brahms symphonies would make a
nice member pledge gift and catalog item.


-- Tom Fine

----- Original Message ----- From: "Roderic G Stephens"
To:
Sent: Tuesday, June 06, 2006 4:22 PM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Vanguard Classics reappears in 2 cd sets



I'm another devotee of the Commands, especially the
Pittsburgh/Steinberg recordings. Mine are all the reel
to reel releases that I've collected through the
years. The string sound of the Rach #2 Symphony is
some of the sweetest I've ever heard.

Rod Stephens

--- Roger and Allison Kulp
wrote:

I have a few of these Commands myself.They were
pretty good.35mm film,George Piros mastering,etc. .I
had thought they were pretty much forgotten,as
nobody talks about them,the way they do Everest,or
any other early stereo label.I would assume the
original film is either long gone,or unusable.I
guess you might talk someone like Classic Records,or
Simply Vinyl,into pressing a batch up.Some
interested,and well-heeled benefactor might have to
help fund it,though.
Roger Kulp

Tom Fine wrote:
Hi David:

This is great info, I'm certianly not going to
berate you.

I can't understand what "last of its kind" machine
Omega was claiming to use. I had heard they used
3-track tapes played back on an Ampex 3200 transport
with MR-70 heads and electronics. If their
"last of its kind" was indeed playing films, it was
not near last of its kind. 3-track mag-film
machines are still in use all over the place. In NY,
one need only go to Astoria to see masses of
mag-film machines in daily use.

Whatever those guys out in CA told you is probably
closer to the truth than my 3rd-hand info.

Hey, if someone on this list has a viable reissue
label, let's talk about Command Classics. I think
Universal wants a pretty hefty units commitment, so
it's gotta be someone with some marketing and
distribution abilities. A 500 or 1000 unit release
won't cut it with those guys.

-- Tom Fine

----- Original Message ----- From: "David Lewis"
To:
Sent: Monday, June 05, 2006 2:38 PM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Vanguard Classics reappears
in 2 cd sets



Then what did DCC use to make thier reissues,a few years back?

Tom Fine wrote: This is the key fact about
Everest, from the Vanguard Classics website:

------------------------------------
WHAT ABOUT EVEREST?

That's the most asked question from consumers who
visit our site. When
Artemis Records purchased
Vanguard Classics from the Omega Records Group in
2003, we declined to
purchase the license to the
Everest label held by Omega. We know that many of
you are looking for the
catalog of recordings
available from Everest, but Vanguard Classics no
longer distributes the
Everest label.

------------------------------------
(Tom continues...)
As I understand it, and I might be wrong ...

Everest is now owned by Universal, and Omega no
longer exists as a working
entity so they no longer
have a license to release any Everest recordings.
Universal also owns the
libraries of the only two
other labels to extensively use 35mm mag-film,
Mercury (which Universal
acquired as part of
Polygram) and Command (which was owned by former MCA
group that morphed into
Universal, acquired by
MCA as part of ABC Records).

As I understand it, and again I might be wrong,
Omega made their 3ch SACD's
from the backup 3-track
tapes (or the original sessions were done on tape,
not film), not from
Everest's magnetic films,
which I've been told are in terrible condition and
many are not around
anymore.
****

I remember speaking with Duane Martuge, who was
working as a rep for
Omega/Everest/Vanguard Classics when they first
rolled out the Everest
product line in about 1996 or so. I met him at the
Allegro Conference. Duane
said that they **did** work from the Everest films
and utilized a machine at
Sony that "was the last of its kind" to play back
the films. Apparently,
this machine was mothballed just as the Everest
project reached completion.
At one point Omega/Everest was including a little
insert with photos within
the Everest CD releases to show how they did it
technically. But do note
that the re-issue program was very limited - perhaps
only 8-16 short CDs
ever resulted from it. So Tom's assertion that "they
are in terrible
condition and may not be around anymore" might well
be correct. The
Northridge earthquake also damaged a great many of
the Everest masters - a
pity - many reels were bent in half.

Tom:
Some of the Everest jazz stuff has turned up on a
small label the name of
which escapes me (Woody
Herman, Tito Puente and some others). If I recall
correctly, they noted that
the material was
licensed from Universal, which backs up my belief
that Everest is now owned
by Universal.

The DCC reissues of Everest Jazz material were
supplied by Bernie Solomon,
who was part of Everest initially and also had a
share in DCC. These would
have been taken from tapes, and I wish that there
had been more of them done
than the couple that appeared. At the time at which
I met Bernie, in the
late 1990s, he still owned a large part of the
Everest catalogue, and had
issued some of the classical items on a terrible,
but persistent, label
called Bescol (i.e. "Bernie E. Solomon Company
Limited" or something like
that) and had leased these and still more to
LaserLight. Bernie hasn't been
dead a very long time, and if Artemis/Vanguard
decided to pass on the
Everest classical catalogue, perhaps it has reverted
to his, or someone
else's, estate. Remember that Bernie Solomon
(Everest) and Seymour Solomon
(Vanguard) were brothers, so this might complicate
matters of legacy
considerably. If Universal purchased Everest, I have
yet to hear of it, but
they don't crow very loudly when they make such
acquisitions.

Tom:

I wish there was enough interest
in the Command orchestral stuff to license and
reissue some of it. The
Pittsburgh/Steinberg stuff
was really good.

***
I am SO with you there, brother! I remember for my
ninth Christmas I told my
parents I wanted Stravinsky conducting his three big
ballets. I got the Le
Sacre and Firebird LPs but there was no Petrushka,
so Mom and Dad persuaded
me to settle for the $1.99 Pittsburgh/Steinberg
performance on Westminister
Gold. I grew to love it so much I never went back to
look for a Petrushka
with Stravinsky conducting. The Schubert symphony
disc in that Command
series was also just astounding.

Finally, I just wanted to say that I have discussed
these topics before only
to be berated on this list for repeating what guys
like Martuge, Steve
Hoffmann and Bernie Solomon said to me. Bear in mind
that the office for DCC
was not far from where I worked (as the classical
guy at the Tower Records
in Woodland Hills.) PLEASE - do not come on here and
tell me I'm a bleeping
liar and how could I stand to circulate such myths.
I have no idea why these
guys would say such things, but I was a good account
for them and perhaps
they put a little gloss on it. They did seem
surprised that I seemed to know
so much about their back catalogue and may have been
a bit guarded about it.
But I used to see Bernie in the store two and three
times a week, and I made
a point of remembering whatever he told me.

David N. Lewis
Assistant Classical Editor, All Music Guide

My life is the clearest proof that if you have
talent, determination and
luck, you will make it in the end: Never Give Up. -
Sir Georg Solti



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